Machine Type Communication (MTC) is a new type of communication idea for the purpose of organic integration of various different types of communication technologies, for example, machine to machine communication, machine controlled communication, human-machine interactive communication, mobile interconnection communication, etc., to thereby promote the development of social production and life styles. Human to human communication services are expected to possibly occupy only one third of the entire terminal market, and a larger number of communications will be MTC communication services. MTC communication is sometimes referred to as Machine to Machine (M2M) communication or Internet of Things.
The existing mobile communication network is designed, for example, the network capacity is determined, etc., for communication between one person and another. If it is desired to support MTC communication on the mobile communication network, a mechanism of the mobile communication network has to be optimized in view of characteristics of MTC communication so that MTC communication can be better performed without influence or with little influence upon traditional human to human communication.
Some possible characteristics of MTC communication as currently recognized are the following:
an MTC terminal has low mobility;
an MTC terminal performs data transmission with the network side for a controllable period of time;
an MTC terminal performs data transmission with the network side with a low instantaneity requirement, that is, with a time tolerance;
an MTC terminal is limited in power and required with extremely low power consumption;
there is only a small data amount of information transmission performed between an MTC terminal and the network side;
MTC terminals can be managed per in unit of groups;
 . . .
A real MTC terminal may have one or more of the foregoing characteristics.
In numerous MTC application scenarios, an MTC device transmits only a small data amount of data to the network side, and if the data is transmitted in a traditional data transmission scheme, then there will be a significant signalling overhead, thus resulting in a low efficiency of a system; or if the small data amount of data is transmitted in a scheme of transmitting user data on a control plane, then a drawback thereof lies in the following despite a lowered signalling overhead and improved efficiency of the system:
congestion of transmitted and processed signalling may be incurred or aggravated when the system is heavily loaded.